Image encoding/decoding apparatus and method

ABSTRACT

Provided is an image encoding/decoding apparatus and method. The image encoding apparatus may include a motion vector prediction unit to perform a prediction with respect to an arbitrary motion vector of a current block within an image, using at least one of vector information of a motion vector corresponding to an adjacent block and vector information of a previous motion vector of the current block, and a differential determination unit to determine differential information of a motion vector of the current block based on the motion vector predicted in the motion vector prediction unit and an actual motion vector of the current block.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION(S)

This application is a Continuation Application of U.S. application Ser.No. 16/236,851, filed Dec. 31, 2018, now U.S. Pat. No. 10,484,706 issuedon Nov. 19, 2019, which is a Continuation Application of U.S.application Ser. No. 15/439,322, filed Feb. 22, 2017, now U.S. Pat. No.10,212,448 issued on Feb. 19, 2019, which is a Continuation Applicationof U.S. application Ser. No. 14/553,602, filed Nov. 25, 2014, now U.S.Pat. No. 9,602,832 issued on Mar. 21, 2017, which is a ContinuationApplication of U.S. application Ser. No. 12/976,346, filed Dec. 22,2010, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,953,686 issued on Feb. 10, 2015, which claimsthe benefit under 35 U.S.C. § 119(a) of Korean Patent Application Nos.10-2009-0129963, filed on Dec. 23, 2009, and 10-2010-0010359, filed onFeb. 4, 2010, in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the entiredisclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference for allpurposes.

BACKGROUND 1. Field of the Invention

Embodiments of the present invention relate to an imageencoding/decoding apparatus and method, and more particularly, to animage encoding/decoding apparatus and method, which may provide a methodfor predicting an arbitrary motion vector of a current block within animage.

2. Description of the Related Art

Recently, along with a significant increase in high quality digitalvideo contents, demands for transmission of the high quality digitalvideo contents and for play services have increased.

To meet the demands, technologies that may encode and compress videocontents with a high bit rate and a high resolution may become veryimportant.

H.264/AVC, a video coding standard, may use, as a prediction signal, amotion vector (MV) of an adjacent block having been previously encodedto encode a motion vector in a B (Bi-predictive) block having two motionvectors. Hereinafter, the two motion vectors may be referred to as afirst motion vector and a second motion vector, respectively.

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a block predicted by a conventionalvideo encoding scheme.

Referring to FIG. 1, a current block 10 to be encoded and a plurality ofadjacent blocks 11 to 14 neighboring the current block 10 areillustrated. In this example, the adjacent blocks may be reconstructedblocks neighboring the current block, and an encoder and a decoder mayinclude vector information associated with motion vectors with respectto the adjacent blocks. The current block may be a target block to becurrently encoded.

In this instance, the plurality of adjacent blocks 11 to 14 may have atleast one of vector information such as an actual motion vector, apredicted motion vector, and a differential signal between the actualmotion vector and the predicted motion vector. Specifically, theadjacent block A 11 has a first motion vector, that is, MV_A_1 and asecond motion vector, that is, MV_A_2, and the adjacent block B 13 has afirst motion vector, that is, MV_B_1 and a second motion vector, thatis, MV_B_2. Similarly, the adjacent block C 14 has a first motionvector, that is, MV_C_1 and a second motion vector, that is, MV_C_2, andthe adjacent block D 12 has a first motion vector, that is, MV_D_1 and asecond motion vector, that is, MV_D_2.

According to a conventional prediction method for a first motion vectorof the current block 10, when the adjacent blocks use the same referencepicture list and the same reference picture index as the current block,a median prediction may be realized by the following Equation.PMV1=median{MV_A_1,MV_B_1,MV_C_1}  [Equation]

Consequently, the first motion vector of the current block 10 may becalculated by the respective first motion vectors (MV_A_1, MV_B_1, andMV_C_1) of the plurality of adjacent blocks 11 to 14.

Also, a conventional prediction method for a second motion vector of thecurrent block 10 may be realized by the following Equation.PMV2=median{MV_A_2,MV_B_2,MV_C_2}  [Equation]

Consequently, the second motion vector of the current block 10 may becalculated by the respective second motion vectors (MV_A_2, MV_B_2, andMV_C_2) of the plurality of adjacent blocks 11 to 14.

In this manner, the conventional video encoding method may use only avector corresponding to a currently predicted motion vector from among aplurality of motion vectors of the adjacent blocks, and may fail toconsider correlation and similarity among the plurality of motionvectors.

SUMMARY

An aspect of the present invention provides an image encoding/decodingapparatus and method that may consider a motion vector of an adjacentblock and a previous motion vector when predicting an arbitrary motionvector of a current block.

Another aspect of the present invention provides an imageencoding/decoding apparatus and method that may scale vector informationof a motion vector of an adjacent block and of a previous motion vector,and use the scaled vector information.

Still another aspect of the present invention provides an imageencoding/decoding apparatus and method that may select referenceinformation to be used when predicting a motion vector based onsimilarity estimated among motion vectors within each block of theadjacent blocks.

Yet another aspect of the present invention provides an imageencoding/decoding apparatus and method that may predict a motion vectorusing a plurality of prediction schemes.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided animage encoding apparatus, including: a motion vector prediction unit toperform a prediction with respect to an arbitrary motion vector of acurrent block within an image, using at least one of vector informationof a motion vector corresponding to an adjacent block and vectorinformation of a previous motion vector of the current block; and adifferential determination unit to determine differential information ofa motion vector of the current block based on the motion vectorpredicted in the motion vector prediction unit and an actual motionvector of the current block.

The vector information of the motion vector corresponding to theadjacent block may include at least one of at least one actual motionvector of the adjacent block, at least one motion vector predictedcorresponding to the adjacent block, and differential information foreach of the motion vectors of the adjacent block.

The vector information of the previous motion vector may include atleast one of the previously predicted motion vector (PMV1), actualmotion vector (MV1) of the previous motion vector, differentialinformation (MVD1) of the previous motion vector, a motion vector(MV-col) of a block corresponding to the current block within apreviously reconstructed reference picture, a motion vector of anadjacent block of the corresponding block, and predetermined offsetinformation.

The motion vector prediction unit may predict the arbitrary motionvector using one of the following Equations:

[Equations]PMV2=MV_A_1,PMV2=MV_B_1,PMV2=MV_C_1,PMV2=MV_D_1,PMV2=MV_A_2,PMV2=MV_B_2,PMV2=MV_C_2,PMV2=MV_D_2,PMV2=MV_col,PMV2=median{MV_A_1,MV_B_1,MV_C_1,MV_A_2,MV_B_2,MV_C_2,MV_D_2},PMV2=median{MV_A_2,MV_B_2,MV_C_2,MV_D_2,MV1},PMV2=median{MV_A_2,MV_B_2,MV_C_2,MV1,MV1},PMV2=avg{MV_A_2,MV_B_2,MV_C_2,MV1,MV1},PMV2=median{MV_A_2,MV_C_2,MV1},PMV2=median{MV_A_2,MV_B_2,MV1},PMV2=MV1,PMV2=median{MV_A_2,MV_B_2,MV_C_2,MV1,MV_col}, andPMV2=median{MV_A_2,MV_B_2,MV_C_2}+offset,

where PMV2 denotes a motion vector of a current block predicted by eachof the Equations, MV_A_1, MV_B_1, MV_C_1 denotes a first motion vectorof the adjacent block, MV_A_2, MV_B_2, MV_C_2, MV_D_2 denotes a secondmotion vector of the adjacent block, MV1 denotes the previous motionvector of the current block, MV_col denotes a motion vector of thecorresponding block of the current block within the reference picture,and offset denotes a predetermined offset value.

In addition to the above Equations, an equation based on a combinationof the vector information associated with the motion vectorcorresponding to the adjacent block, the vector information associatedwith the previous motion vector of the current block, the motion vectorof the block corresponding to the current block within the previouslyreconstructed reference picture, the motion vector of the adjacent blockof the corresponding block, and information associated with thepredetermined offset value may be used.

The image encoding apparatus may further include a scaling unit toperform a scaling with respect to at least one of the vector informationof the motion vector corresponding to the adjacent block and the vectorinformation of the previous motion vector of the current block.

The scaling unit may determine whether the scaling is performed based onwhether reference pictures of the current block coincide with eachother.

The scaling unit may perform the scaling with respect to the vectorinformation of the previous motion vector of the current block using thefollowing Equation:S_MV1=MV1×(tb−td)/tb,  [Equation]

where S_MV1 denotes a predicted first motion vector where the scaling isperformed, MV1 denotes a first actual motion vector, tb denotes adistance from a first reference picture to a target image, and tddenotes a distance from the first reference picture to a secondreference picture.

The motion vector prediction unit may obtain a second motion vectorbased on the first motion vector. The motion vector prediction unit mayobtain a second motion vector candidate 1 by scaling the first motionvector for the second reference picture, and may obtain the secondmotion vector based on the second motion vector candidate 1 and adjacentblocks neighboring a block corresponding to the second motion vectorcandidate 1 in the second reference picture. In this example,information associated with the first motion vector may be stored ortransmitted. However, information associated with the second motionvector obtained based on the first motion vector may not be stored ortransmitted.

When the motion vector prediction unit predicts n motion vectors, themotion vector prediction unit may store or transmit the informationassociated with the first motion vector that is already encoded, and mayobtain each of the second motion vector through n motion vector based ona corresponding previous motion vector that is already encoded. Apredicted value (PMV(i)) of an i^(th) motion vector (MV(i)) may beexpressed by the following equation:PMV(i)=MV(i)−MV(i−1),

where i=2, . . . , n, and vector information of the i^(th) motion vectorthat may be stored or transmitted may be MVD(i) expressed by thefollowing equation:MVD(i)=MV(i)−PMV(i).

The motion vector prediction unit may perform the prediction byselecting at least one of the vector information of the motion vectorcorresponding to the adjacent block and the vector information of theprevious motion vector of the current block based on similarityestimated among motion vectors within each block of adjacent blocks.

The motion vector prediction unit may include a similarity determinationunit to estimate the similarity among the motion vectors within eachblock of the adjacent blocks to determine whether the estimatedsimilarity is a predetermined reference value, a vector selection unitto select, as reference information, vector information of the motionvector according to the same reference picture from among vectorinformation of the motion vectors corresponding to the adjacent blockwhen the similarity is the predetermined reference value, and aprediction unit to predict the motion vector of the current block usingthe selected reference information.

The vector selection unit may select, as the reference information, atleast one of the vector information of the motion vector correspondingto the adjacent block and the vector information of the previous motionvector of the current block.

At least two prediction units may be included, and the at least twoprediction units predict at least two motion vectors with respect to thecurrent block, respectively.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is providedan image decoding apparatus, including: a motion vector prediction unitto perform a prediction with respect to an arbitrary motion vector of acurrent block within an image using at least one of vector informationof a motion vector corresponding to an adjacent block and vectorinformation of a previous motion vector of the current block; and anadder to add the predicted motion vectors based on differentialinformation of the current block to calculate a motion vector of thecurrent block.

The vector information of the motion vector corresponding to theadjacent block may include at least one of at least one actual motionvector of the adjacent block, at least one predicted motion vectorcorresponding to the adjacent block, and differential information foreach of the motion vectors of the adjacent block.

The vector information of the previous motion vector may include atleast one of the previously predicted motion vector (PMV1), an actualmotion vector (MV1) of the previous motion vector, differentialinformation (MVD1) of the previous motion vector, a motion vector(MV_col) of a block corresponding to the current block within apreviously reconstructed reference picture, a motion vector of theadjacent block of the corresponding block, and predetermined offsetinformation.

According to still another aspect of the present invention, there isprovided an image encoding apparatus, including: a plurality of motionvector prediction units to perform a prediction with respect to anarbitrary motion vector of a current block within an image using atleast one of vector information of a motion vector corresponding to theadjacent block and vector information of a previous motion vector of thecurrent block; a plurality of differential determination units torespectively determine the differential information of the motion vectorpredicted by the plurality of motion vector prediction units, using theactual motion vector of the current block; and a predictiondetermination unit to select a motion vector predicted closest to theactual motion vector based on the determined plurality of differentialinformation, and to determine, as a prediction motion vectorcorresponding to the current block, the selected motion vector.

The prediction determination unit may generate a prediction indexindicating a prediction scheme of predicting the selected motion vector.

According to yet another aspect of the present invention, there isprovided an image decoding apparatus, including: a motion vectorprediction unit to perform a prediction with respect to an arbitrarymotion vector of a current block within an image, in a prediction schemeusing at least one of vector information of a motion vectorcorresponding to an adjacent block and vector information of a previousmotion vector of the current block; and an adder to add the predictedmotion vector based on differential information of the current block tocalculate a motion vector of the current block.

When a prediction index indicating an arbitrary prediction schemecorresponding to the current block exists, the motion vector predictionunit may predict the motion vector of the current block in a predictionscheme according to the prediction index.

According to a further aspect of the present invention, there isprovided an image encoding method, including: performing a predictionwith respect to an arbitrary motion vector of a current block within animage, using at least one of vector information of a motion vectorcorresponding to an adjacent block and vector information of a previousmotion vector of the current block; and determining differentialinformation of a motion vector of the current block based on thepredicted motion vector and vector information and an actual motionvector of the current block.

According to a further aspect of the present invention, there isprovided an image decoding method, including: performing a predictionwith respect to an arbitrary motion vector of a current block within animage, using at least one of vector information of a motion vectorcorresponding to an adjacent block and vector information of a previousmotion vector of the current block; and adding the predicted motionvectors based on differential information of the current block tocalculate a motion vector of the current block.

Additional aspects, features, and/or advantages of the invention will beset forth in part in the description which follows and, in part, will beapparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of theinvention.

Effect

According to embodiments of the present invention, there is provided animage encoding/decoding apparatus and method that may predict a motionvector in effective and various schemes when compressing and encoding animage, thereby obtaining image compression effects in a high efficiency.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These and/or other aspects, features, and advantages of the inventionwill become apparent and more readily appreciated from the followingdescription of exemplary embodiments, taken in conjunction with theaccompanying drawings of which:

FIG. 1 illustrates a block predicted by a conventional video imagecoding scheme;

FIG. 2 illustrates a configuration of an image encoding apparatusaccording to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 illustrates another example of a motion vector prediction unit ofFIG. 2;

FIG. 4 illustrates a scaling process of a scaling unit of FIG. 2;

FIGS. 5, 6A, and 6B are flowcharts illustrating an image encoding methodaccording to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 7 illustrates a configuration of an image decoding apparatuscorresponding to an image encoding apparatus of FIG. 2;

FIG. 8 illustrates another example of a motion vector prediction unit ofFIG. 2;

FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrating operations of a motion vectorprediction unit of FIG. 8;

FIG. 10 illustrates a configuration of an image encoding apparatusaccording to another embodiment of the present invention; and

FIG. 11 illustrates a configuration of an image decoding apparatuscorresponding to the encoding apparatus of FIG. 10.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Reference will now be made in detail to exemplary embodiments of thepresent invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanyingdrawings, wherein like reference numerals refer to the like elementsthroughout. Exemplary embodiments are described below to explain thepresent invention by referring to the figures.

When detailed descriptions related to a well-known related function orconfiguration are determined to make the spirits of the presentinvention ambiguous, the detailed descriptions will be omitted herein.Also, terms used throughout the present specification are used toappropriately describe exemplary embodiments of the present invention,and thus may be different depending upon a user and an operator'sintention, or practices of application fields of the present invention.Therefore, the terms must be defined based on descriptions made throughthe present invention.

FIG. 2 illustrates a configuration of an image encoding apparatusaccording to an embodiment of the present invention.

In this instance, the image encoding apparatus may be implemented bypredicting at least one motion vector (for example, a forward movementmotion vector, a backward movement motion vector, a luminance motionvector, a chrominance motion vector, and the like) with respect torespective macro blocks (or blocks) of a B Slice (bi-predictive slices).Hereinafter, the at least one motion vector may be referred to as afirst motion vector and a second motion vector.

Hereinafter, a block may denote an image encoding unit and an imagedecoding unit. When a single image is encoded or decoded, the singleimage is divided into multiple blocks and encoding or decoding may beperformed based on the encoding unit and decoding unit. Therefore, theencoding unit and decoding unit may be referred to as the block, amacroblock, a coding unit, a prediction unit, and the like. A singleblock may be divided into smaller sub-blocks.

The motion vector may denote a vector value with respect to motioninformation and may be expressed by two or more dimensions, and may begenerally in a form of (x, y). Even though the motion vector isexpressed to indicate a vector (x, y), the motion vector includes valuesof elements of the motion vector, such as x and y.

The first motion vector may correspond to a first reference picture of acurrent picture (for example, an image within a list 0 in H.264/AVCstandard), and the second motion vector may correspond to a secondreference picture of the current picture (for example, an image within alist 1 in H.264/AVC standard).

The first motion vector may correspond to a second reference picture ofthe current picture (for example, the image within the list 1 in H.264),and the second motion vector may correspond to the first referencepicture of the current picture, for example, the image within the list 0in H.264.

The first motion vector may correspond to the first reference picture ofthe current image, for example, the image within the list 0 in H.264,and the second motion vector may correspond to the first referencepicture of the current picture, for example, the image within the list 0in H.264.

The first motion vector may correspond to the second reference pictureof the current image, for example, the image within the list 1 in H.264,and the second motion vector may correspond to the second referencepicture of the current picture, for example, the image within the list 1in H.264.

The list 0 and the list 1 may use the same reference picture ordifferent reference pictures.

Referring to FIG. 2, the encoding apparatus includes a motion vector(MV) prediction unit 100 and at least one MV differential determinationunits (MVD1 and MVD 2) 201 and 202.

The motion vector prediction unit 100 may predict a motion vectorcorresponding to a current block using at least one of vectorinformation of a motion vector corresponding to an adjacent block andvector information of a previous motion vector of the current block.

In this instance, the vector information of the motion vectorcorresponding to the adjacent block may include at least one of at leastone actual motion vector of the adjacent block, at least one predictedmotion vector corresponding to the adjacent block, and differentialinformation for each motion vector of the adjacent block.

Also, the vector information of the previous motion vector may includeat least one of the previously predicted motion vector (PMV1), actualmotion vector (MV1) of the previous motion vector, differentialinformation (MVD1) of the previous motion vector, a motion vector(MV_col) of a block corresponding to the current block within apreviously reconstructed reference picture, a motion vector of anadjacent block of the corresponding block, and predetermined offsetinformation.

Accordingly, the motion vector prediction unit 100 may receive a motionvector corresponding to the adjacent block, such as a motion vector(spatially adjacent block(s)'s MV(s)) corresponding to an adjacent blockin 0 through n current pictures, and a motion vector (temporallycollocated block(s)'s MV(s)) corresponding to a block corresponding to 0through m current blocks within a reference picture and the adjacentblock of the corresponding block.

The motion vector prediction unit 100 may include a first predictionunit 101 for predicting the first motion vector of the current block,and a second prediction unit 202 for predicting the second motion vectorof the current block.

The first prediction unit 101 may use one of vector information ofmotion vectors corresponding to the adjacent blocks.

The first prediction unit 101 may use at least one of Equation 1 throughEquation 10.PMV1=MV_A_1  [Equation 1]PMV1=MV_B_1  [Equation 2]PMV1=MV_C_1  [Equation 3]PMV1=MV_D_1  [Equation 4]PMV1=MV_A_2  [Equation 5]PMV1=MV_B_2  [Equation 6]PMV1=MV_C_2  [Equation 7]PMV1=MV_D_2  [Equation 8]PMV1=MV_col  [Equation 9]PMV1=median{MV_A_1,MV_B_1,MV_C_1,MV_A_2,MV_B_2,MV_C_2,MV_D_1}.  [Equation10]

Here, PMV1 denotes a first motion vector of a current block predicted byeach Equation, MV_A_1, MV_B_1, MV_C_1, and MV_D_1 respectively denote afirst motion vector of an adjacent block, MV_A_2, MV_B_2, MV_C_2, andMV_D_2 respectively denote a second motion vector of the adjacent block,and MV_col denotes a motion vector of a block corresponding to thecurrent block within a reference picture of the current block.

In addition, the first prediction unit 101 may use at least one of themotion vector MV_col of the block corresponding to the current blockwithin the reference picture of the current block, and blocks adjacentto the block corresponding to the current block within the referencepicture of the current block, to predict the first motion vector.

The first differential determination unit 200 may determine differentialinformation (MVD1) between a first predicted motion vector (PMV1) of thecurrent block and a first actual motion vector (MV1).

The second prediction unit 102 may predict the second motion vector ofthe current block using at least one of vector information of a motionvector corresponding to an adjacent block and vector information of aprevious motion vector of the current block.

Accordingly, the second prediction unit 102 may use at least one of thefollowing Equations 11 to 28.PMV2=MV_A_1  [Equation 11]PMV2=MV_B_1  [Equation 12]PMV2=MV_C_1  [Equation 13]PMV2=MV_D_1  [Equation 14]PMV2=MV_A_2  [Equation 15]PMV2=MV_B_2  [Equation 16]PMV2=MV_C_2  [Equation 17]PMV2=MV_D_2  [Equation 18]PMV2=MV_col  [Equation 19]PMV2=median{MV_A_1,MV_B_1,MV_C_1,MV_A_2,MV_B_2,MV_C_2,MV_D_2}  [Equation20]PMV2=median{MV_A_2,MV_B_2,MV_C_2,MV_D_2,MV1}  [Equation 21]PMV2=median{MV_A_2,MV_B_2,MV_C_2,MV1,MV1}  [Equation 22]PMV2=avg{MV_A_2,MV_B_2,MV_C_2,MV1,MV1}  [Equation 23]PMV2=median{MV_A_2,MV_C_2,MV1}  [Equation 24]PMV2=median{MV_A_2,MV_B_2,MV1}  [Equation 25]PMV2=MV1  [Equation 26]PMV2=median{MV_A_2,MV_B_2,MV_C_2,MV1,MV_col}  [Equation 27]PMV2=median{MV_A_2,MV_B_2,MV_C_2}+offset  [Equation 28]

Here, PMV2 denotes a second motion vector of a current block predictedby each Equation, MV_A_1, MV_B_1, and MV_C_1 respectively denote a firstmotion vector of an adjacent block, MV_A_2, MV_B_2, MV_C_2, and MV_D_2respectively denote a second motion vector of an adjacent block, MV1denotes a previous motion vector of a current block, MV_col denotes amotion vector of a block corresponding to a current block within apreviously reconstructed reference picture, and offset denotes apredetermined offset value.

In this instance, the predetermined offset value may be one ofdifferential information (MVD1) of a first motion vector (MV1) of acurrent block, and differential information of each motion vectorcorresponding to an adjacent block (for example, differentialinformation (MV_A_2_D) of a second motion vector (MV_A_2) of an adjacentblock (A), and differential information (MV_B_2_D) of a second motionvector (MV_B_2) of an adjacent block (B)). Also, the offset may bepreviously scaled.

The second differential determination unit 201 may determinedifferential information (MVD2) between a second predicted motion vector(PMV2) of the current block and a second actual motion vector (MV2).

In this instance, the second differential determination unit 202 may useone of the following Equations 29 to 31.MVD2=MV2−PMV2  [Equation 29]MVD2=offset2  [Equation 30]

In this instance, offset2 may be one of {−n, −(n−α), −(n−2α) . . . 0, .. . , −(n−2α), n−α, n}. Also, n denotes a positive integer including 0,and α denotes a positive real number including 0.MVD2=min/offset2{offset2−(MV2−PMV2)}  [Equation 31]

In this instance, a value of offset2 may be designated as a plurality ofcandidates such as {−0.5, 0, 0.5}. In this case, the second differentialdetermination unit 202 may select, as differential information of thesecond motion vector of [Equation 28], a value closest to a differencewith an actual motion vector among candidate values of the offset2.

In addition to Equations 1 to 31, an equation based on a combination ofthe vector information associated with the motion vector correspondingto the adjacent block, the vector information associated with theprevious motion vector of the current block, the motion vector of theblock corresponding to the current block within the previouslyreconstructed reference picture, the motion vector of the adjacent blockof the corresponding block, and information associated with thepredetermined offset value may be used.

Although two motion vector prediction units and two differentialdetermination units are used in example embodiments, a number of vectorprediction units and a number of differential determination units may bedetermined based on a number of motion vectors of the current block.

The motion vector prediction unit 100 may temporally scale at least oneof vector information to be used when predicting the motion vector ofthe current block.

FIG. 3 illustrates another example of a motion vector prediction unit ofFIG. 2

Referring to FIG. 3, the motion vector prediction unit 110 may include ascaling unit 111, a first prediction unit 112, and a second predictionunit 113.

The scaling unit 111 may temporally scale at least one of vectorinformation of a motion vector corresponding to an adjacent block andvector information of a previous motion vector of the current block, andtransmit the scaled vector information to the first prediction unit 112and the second prediction unit 113.

When the scaling unit 111 is implemented by scaling the first motionvector of the vector information of the motion vector corresponding tothe adjacent block and the vector information of the previous motionvector of the current block, a scaling process of the first motionvector is performed which is further described with reference to FIG. 4.

FIG. 4 illustrates a scaling process of a scaling unit of FIG. 3.

Referring to FIG. 4, a current picture 21 and a plurality of referencepictures 20 and 22 (hereinafter, referred to as a first referencepicture and a second reference picture) are illustrated, and arranged ina temporal order. The scaling unit 111 may scale a first motion vector(MV1) using the following Equation 32.S_MV1=MV1×(tb−td)/tb,  [Equation 32]

Here, S_MV1 denotes a first scaled motion vector, tb denotes a distancebetween a first reference picture 20 and a current picture 21, and tddenotes a distance between the first reference picture 20 and a secondreference picture 22. Here, a sign and a value of each of tb and td maybe determined in a temporal order of a display.

For example, when assuming that the first reference picture 20 is a(n−1)-th display order, the current picture is an n-th display order,the second reference picture 22 is a (n+2)-th display order, tb maysatisfy tb={n−(n−1)} and td may satisfy td={(n+2)−(n−1)}. Also, whenassuming that the first reference picture 20 is a (n−1)-th displayorder, the current picture is an n-th display order, the secondreference picture 22 is a (n−2)-th display order, tb may satisfytb={n−(n−1)}, and td may satisfy td={(n−2)−(n−1)}.

The first prediction unit 112 may predict the first motion vector of thecurrent block using at least one of vector information of a motionvector corresponding to an adjacent block and the scaled vectorinformation (for example, an arbitrary motion vector corresponding tothe adjacent block).

The second prediction unit 113 may predict a second motion vector of thecurrent block using at least one of the vector information of the motionvector corresponding to the adjacent block, vector information of aprevious motion vector of the current block, and the scaled vectorinformation (for example, each vector information of the first motionvector).

When the scaling unit 111 scales the first motion vector (MV1), thesecond prediction unit 113 may use the following Equation 33.PMV2=median{MV_A_2,MV_B_2,MV_C_2,MV_D_2,S_MV1}  [Equation 33]

Also, the second prediction unit 113 may use the scaled vectorinformation (first scaled motion vector (S_MV1)) instead of usingexisting vector information (for example, the first motion vector (MV1))that is not scaled in Equations 1 to 31.

Accordingly, the first prediction unit 112 and the second predictionunit 113 may more accurately predict each motion vector of the currentblock using vector information obtained by correcting temporalinconsistency occurring in the adjacent block or the current block.

The scaling unit 111 may determine whether the scaling operation isperformed depending on whether the reference pictures of the currentblock coincide with each other.

Specifically, the scaling unit 111 may determine whether a referencepicture (ref_pic_alpha) of a motion vector (MV_alpha) to be referred toand a reference picture (ref_pic_current) of a motion vector(MV_current) of a current block to be encoded are different from eachother. When the reference picture (ref_pic_alpha) and the referencepicture (ref_pic_current) are different from each other, the scalingunit 111 may temporally scale the motion vector (MV_alpha) to bereferred to, based on the motion vector (MV_current) of the currentbock.

The second prediction unit 113 may obtain the second motion vector basedon the first motion vector. The second prediction unit 113 may obtain asecond motion vector candidate 1 by scaling the first motion vector forthe second reference picture, as illustrated in FIG. 4, and may obtainthe second motion vector based on the second motion vector candidate 1and adjacent blocks neighboring a block corresponding to the secondmotion vector candidate 1 in the second reference picture. In thisexample, information associated with the first motion vector may bestored or transmitted. However, information associated with the secondmotion vector obtained based on the first motion vector may not bestored or transmitted. An encoding apparatus and a decoding apparatusmay be embodied without the second differential determination unit 202.

FIGS. 5, 6A, and 6B are flowcharts illustrating an image encoding methodaccording to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating an image encoding method according toan embodiment.

Referring to FIG. 5, in operation S10, the motion vector prediction unit100 may predict a motion vector of a current block using at least one ofvector information of a motion vector corresponding to an adjacent blockand vector information of a previous motion vector of a current block.

When a currently predicted motion vector is a first motion vector, thefirst prediction unit 101 may predict the first motion vector for thecurrent bock using at least one of vector information of the motionvectors corresponding to the adjacent blocks. When the currentlypredicted motion vector is a second motion vector, the second predictionunit 102 may predict the second motion vector for the current blockusing at least one of the vector information of the motion vectorcorresponding to the adjacent block and the vector information of theprevious motion vector of the current block.

In operation S20, the first differential determination unit 200 or thesecond differential determination unit 201 may determine differentialinformation (MVD1 or MVD2) between an actual motion vector (MV1 or MV2)and the motion vector (PMV1 or PMV2) predicted in operation S10.

The motion vector prediction unit 100 may determine whether allpredictions of the motion vectors for the current block are performed,and request to perform operation S10 when all predictions are notperformed.

Operation S10 may include an operation of temporally scaling at leastone (for example, a motion vector corresponding to an adjacent block) ofthe vector information of the previous motion vector of the currentblock.

Operation S10 may include operations S11, S12, and S13 of FIG. 6A.

Referring to FIG. 6A, in operation S11, the scaling unit 111 maytemporally scale the motion vector corresponding to the adjacent block.

In operation S12, the first prediction unit 112 may predict the firstmotion vector of the current block using at least one of the vectorinformation of the motion vectors corresponding to the adjacent blocks.

In operation S13, the second prediction unit 113 may predict the secondmotion vector of the current block using at least one of the vectorinformation of the motion vector corresponding to the adjacent block,the vector information of the previous motion vector of the currentblock, and the scaled vector information.

Also, the scaling unit 111 may determine whether the temporal scaling isnecessary depending on information regarding whether reference picturesof the current block coincide with each other.

Accordingly, operation S13 may include operations of FIG. 6B.

Here, it is assumed that the scaling unit 111 scales the first motionvector (MV1).

Referring to FIG. 6B, in operation S13 a, the scaling unit 111 maydetermine whether a first reference picture 20 and a second referencepicture 22 of the current block are different from each other.

In operation S13 b, when the first reference picture 20 and the secondreference picture 22 are different from each other based on thedetermination result of operation S13 a, the scaling unit 111 may scalethe first motion vector (MV1).

In operation S13 c, the second prediction unit 113 may predict thesecond motion vector of the current block using at least one of thefirst motion vector (S_MV1) scaled in operation S13 b, the vectorinformation of the motion vector corresponding to the adjacent block,and the vector information of the previous motion vector of the currentblock.

In operation S13 d, when the first reference picture 20 and the secondreference picture 22 are not different from each other based on thedetermination result of the operation S13 a, the second prediction unit113 may predict the second motion vector of the current block using atleast one of the vector information of the motion vector correspondingto the adjacent block and the vector information of the previous motionvector of the current block.

FIG. 7 illustrates a configuration of an image decoding apparatuscorresponding to an image encoding apparatus of FIG. 2.

Referring to FIG. 7, the decoding apparatus may include a motion vectorprediction unit 300 and at least one adder 400.

The motion vector prediction unit 300 may include a first predictionunit 301 and a second prediction unit 302 to predict a motion vector(for example, a first motion vector and a second motion vector) of eachblock from an inputted image stream. In this instance, the inputtedimage stream may be a result obtained such that an image is encoded bythe encoding apparatus of FIG. 2.

The motion vector prediction unit 300 may predict each motion vector ofthe current block using at least one of vector information of a motionvector corresponding to an adjacent block and vector information of aprevious motion vector of a current block. In this example, the motionvector prediction unit 300 may operate in the same manner as the motionvector prediction unit 100 of the encoding apparatus of FIG. 2.

In particular, the first prediction unit 301 may predict the firstmotion vector of the current block using at least one of the vectorinformation of the motion vectors corresponding to the adjacent block.

The first adder 400 may add the predicted first motion vectors (PMV1)using differential information (MVD1) for the first motion vector of thecurrent block to calculate a first motion vector (MV1).

The second prediction unit 302 may predict the second motion vector ofthe current block using at least one of the vector information of themotion vector corresponding to the adjacent block and the vectorinformation of the previous motion vector of the current block. Thesecond adder 401 may add the predicted second motion vectors (PMV2)using differential information (MVD2) for the second motion vector ofthe current block to calculate a second motion vector (MV2).

Although two motion vector prediction units and two adders are used inexample embodiments, a number of vector prediction units and a number ofadders may be determined based on a number of motion vectors of thecurrent block.

FIG. 8 illustrates another example of the motion vector prediction unit120 of FIG. 2.

The other example of the motion vector prediction unit 120 may be a casewhere vector information selected, from vector information of a previousmotion vector of the current block and vector information of a motionvector corresponding to an adjacent block, based on similarity amongmotion vectors within each block of adjacent blocks is used whenpredicting the motion vector of the current block.

Referring to FIG. 8, the motion vector prediction unit 120 may include ascaling unit 121, a similarity determination unit 122, a vectorselection unit 123, a first prediction unit 124, and a second predictionunit 125.

The scaling unit 121 may temporally scale at least one of the vectorinformation of the motion vector corresponding to the adjacent block andthe vector information of the previous motion vector of the currentblock (for example, differential information of the first motionvector).

The similarity determination unit 122 may estimate similarity amongmotion vectors within each block of the adjacent blocks with respect tothe respective adjacent blocks, and determine whether the estimatedsimilarity is greater than a predetermined reference value.

In this instance, the similarity determination unit 122 may calculate adifference among the respective motion vectors (for example, a firstmotion vector and a second motion vector of an adjacent block A) withineach block of the adjacent blocks, and regard the calculated differenceas the similarity.

When the estimated similarity is not greater than the predeterminedreference value, the vector selection unit 123 may select, as referenceinformation, vector information of a motion vector according to the samereference picture among vector information of the motion vectorscorresponding to the adjacent block.

When the estimated similarity is greater than the predeterminedreference value, the vector selection unit 123 may select, as thereference information, at least one of the vector information of theprevious motion vector of the current block and the vector informationof the motion vector corresponding to the adjacent block.

The first prediction unit 124 and the second prediction unit 125 maypredict the respective motion vectors of the current block using thereference information selected by the vector selection unit 123.

The second prediction unit 302 may obtain the second motion vector basedon the first motion vector. The second prediction unit 302 may obtain asecond motion vector candidate 1 by scaling the first motion vector forthe second reference picture, as illustrated in FIG. 4, and may obtainthe second motion vector based on the second motion vector candidate 1and adjacent blocks neighboring a block corresponding to the secondmotion vector candidate 1 in the second reference picture. In thisexample, differential information (MVD1) associated with the firstmotion vector may be stored or transmitted. However, differentialinformation (MVD2) associated with the second motion vector obtainedbased on the first motion vector may not be stored or transmitted.Therefore, the second adder 401 of FIG. 7 may determine, as a secondmotion vector (MV2), a predicted second motion vector information (PMV2)that is predicted in the second prediction unit 302 without using thedifferential information (MVD2) associated with the second motionvector.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrating operations of a motion vectorprediction unit of FIG. 8.

Referring to FIG. 9, in operation S30, the scaling unit 121 may scale atleast one of vector information of a motion vector corresponding to anadjacent block and vector information of a previous motion vector of acurrent bock.

In operation S31, the similarity determination unit 122 may estimatesimilarity between motion vectors within each block of adjacent blockswith respect to respective adjacent blocks.

In operation S32, the similarity determination unit 122 may determinewhether the estimated similarity is greater than a predeterminedreference value.

In operation S33, when the similarity is greater than the predeterminedreference value based on the determination result of operation S32, thevector selection unit 123 may select, as reference information, at leastone of the vector information of the motion vector corresponding to theadjacent block and the vector information of the previous motion vectorof the current block.

In operation S34, when the similarity is not greater than thepredetermined reference value based on the determination result ofoperation S32, the vector selection unit 123 may select, as thereference information, vector information of a motion vector accordingto the same reference picture from among the vector information of themotion vectors of the adjacent block.

In operation S35, the first prediction unit 124 may predict a firstmotion vector using the reference information selected in operation S33or operation S34, and the second prediction unit 125 may predict asecond motion vector using the reference information selected inoperation S33 or operation S34.

FIG. 10 illustrates a configuration of an image encoding apparatusaccording to another embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 11illustrates a configuration of an image decoding apparatus correspondingto the encoding apparatus of FIG. 10.

Referring to FIG. 10, the image encoding apparatus performing acompression process for a motion vector of a current block isillustrated. In this instance, as for the image encoding apparatus ofFIG. 10, it is assumed that a second motion vector of a plurality ofmotion vectors of the current block is predicted.

The encoding apparatus includes a plurality of second prediction units102-1 to 102-n, a plurality of second differential determination units202-1 to 202-n, and a prediction determination unit 500.

Here, the plurality of second prediction units 102-1 to 102-n mayrespectively predict an arbitrary motion vector (the second motionvector) of the current block in mutually different prediction schemes,using at least one of vector information of a motion vectorcorresponding to an adjacent block and vector information of a previousmotion vector of the current block.

The plurality of second differential determination units 202-1 to 202-nmay determine differential information of the motion vector predicted bythe respective second prediction units 102-1 to 102-n.

Specifically, a 2-1 prediction unit 102-1 may predict the second motionvector in a predetermined prediction scheme (for example, Equation 2)using at least one of the vector information of the motion vectorcorresponding to the adjacent block and vector information of theprevious motion vector of the current block, and a 2-2 prediction unit102-2 may predict the second motion vector in another prediction scheme(for example, Equation 3).

Similarly, a 2-1 differential determination unit 202-1 may determinedifferential information with an actual motion vector (MV2) with respectto the second motion vector predicted by the 2-1 prediction unit 102-1,and a 2-2 differential determination unit 202-2 may determinedifferential information with the actual motion vector (MV2) withrespect to the second motion vector predicted by the 2-2 prediction unit102-2.

The prediction determination unit 500 may select a motion vectorselected to be closest to the actual motion vector (MV2) based oninputted respective differential information, and determine the selectedmotion vector as a prediction motion vector corresponding to the currentblock.

The prediction determination unit 500 may generate a prediction indexindicating a prediction scheme predicting the selected motion vector,and transmit the generated prediction index to the decoding apparatus,together with compression data of an image.

Referring to FIG. 11, the decoding apparatus may include a secondprediction unit 310 and an adder 410.

The second prediction unit 310 may include a plurality of secondprediction units 310-1 to 310-n which perform mutually differentprediction schemes to decode an arbitrary motion vector (second motionvector) of the current block.

For example, the second prediction unit 310 may select a 2-2 predictionunit 310-2 based on the prediction index received together with thecompression data of the image, and predict the second motion vector ofthe current block using the selected 2-2 prediction unit 310-2.

The adder 410 may add differential information (MVD2) of the secondmotion vector of the current block to the predicted second motion vector(PMV2) to thereby calculate the second motion vector (MV2) of thecurrent block.

The present invention is not limited to predicting two motion vectors,and may predict n motion vectors, that is, at least two motion vectors.

In this example, information associated with a first motion vector maybe stored or transmitted, and each of the second motion vector through nmotion vector may be obtained based on a corresponding previous motionvector that is already encoded. n may be greater than or equal to ‘2’. Apredicted value (PMV(i)) of an i^(th) motion vector (MV(i)) may beexpressed by the following equation:PMV(i)=MV(i)−MV(i−1),

where i=2, . . . , n, and vector information of the i^(th) motion vectorthat may be stored or transmitted may be MVD(i) expressed by thefollowing equation:MVD(i)=MV(i)−PMV(i)

The methods according to the above-described embodiments may be recordedin non-transitory computer-readable storage media including programinstructions to implement various operations embodied by a computer. Themedia may also include, alone or in combination with the programinstructions, data files, data structures, and the like. Examples ofnon-transitory computer-readable media include magnetic media such ashard disks, floppy disks, and magnetic tape; optical media such as CDROM disks and DVDs; magneto-optical media such as optical disks; andhardware devices that are specially configured to store and performprogram instructions, such as read-only memory (ROM), random accessmemory (RAM), flash memory, and the like. Examples of programinstructions include both machine code, such as produced by a compiler,and files containing higher level code that may be executed by thecomputer using an interpreter. The described hardware devices may beconfigured to act as one or more software modules in order to performthe operations of the above-described embodiments, or vice versa.

Further, the encoding apparatus of the present invention may beimplemented in a processing type of a macro block of a B Slice, however,the encoding apparatus may be implemented in a processing type of amacro block of a P Slice. In the case of the macro block of the P Slice,the motion vector for each block may be a single. In this case, themacro block of the P Slice may be used as the first motion vector.

Although a few embodiments have been shown and described, it would beappreciated by those skilled in the art that changes may be made inthese embodiments without departing from the principles and spirit ofthe disclosure, the scope of which is defined by the claims and theirequivalents.

What is claimed is:
 1. An image encoding method comprising: generating apredicted motion vector of a current block within a current pictureusing at least one of motion vector information of an adjacent block ofthe current block within the current picture and motion vectorinformation of a collocated block of the current block within acollocated picture; and encoding differential motion vector informationof the current block, the differential motion vector information beinggenerated based on the predicted motion vector of the current block anda motion vector of the current block, wherein the generating thepredicted motion vector of the current block comprises scaling themotion vector information of the adjacent block of the current blockusing a distance from a first reference picture referred to by theadjacent block of the current block to the current picture and adistance from a second reference picture referred to by the currentblock to the current picture, in response to the first reference picturereferred to by the adjacent block of the current block being differentfrom the second reference picture referred to by the current block. 2.The image encoding method of claim 1, wherein the generating thepredicted motion vector of the current block further comprising: scalingthe motion vector information of the collocated block of the currentblock using a distance from a third reference picture referred to by thecollocated block to the collocated picture and a distance from thesecond reference picture referred to by the current block to the currentpicture.
 3. A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium storingencoded data which is received and decoded by an image decodingapparatus and used to reconstruct an image, wherein the encoded datacomprises information on a differential motion vector of a current blockwithin a current picture, wherein the information on the differentialmotion vector of the current block is used to generate a differentialmotion vector of the current block, wherein the differential motionvector of the current block is used to generate a motion vector of thecurrent block with a predicted motion vector of the current block,wherein the predicted motion vector of the current block is generated byusing at least one of motion vector information of an adjacent block ofthe current block within the current picture and motion vectorinformation of a collocated block of the current block within acollocated picture, and wherein, when the predicted motion vector of thecurrent block is generated, the motion vector information of theadjacent block of the current block is scaled using a distance from afirst reference picture referred to by the adjacent block of the currentblock to the current picture and a distance from a second referencepicture referred to by the current block to the current picture, inresponse to the first reference picture referred to by the adjacentblock of the current block being different from the second referencepicture referred to by the current block.